Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, just days after he re-entered the Wisconsin governor’s Democrat primary with the sudden backing of Gov. Tony Evers, was embroiled in a new scandal on Wednesday over an old X account with offensive posts. One referred to “Dirty Dave.” Bizarrely, the page was called “Dirt McGirk.” The Urban Dictionary has a vile definition for that slang term.
You can read the Dirt McGirk posts later in this article, but, be forewarned, they range from dumb to extremely offensive. One even goes after the Obamas and many use a racial slur.
The revelation, by NBC News, which linked Crowley to the old account, plunged the Democrat primary into further chaos; the primary has already imploded after Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez quit amid a bizarre campaign finance scandal and a Marquette poll on Wednesday showed anti-capitalist, socialist Francesca Hong, who belongs to a group that wants to draft a new U.S. Constitution, in first place among Democrats. They are competing on Aug. 11 for the chance to face Republican Tom Tiffany.
Here’s what you need to know about Crowley’s scandal:
1. The scandal was broken by reporters Natasha Korecki, Ben Goggin and Adam Edelman of NBC News national. They reported: “A deeper look at Crowley’s past social media use reveals a connection to incendiary posts about women and race, as well as derogatory LGBTQ references.”
2. NBC News reported that the account was “registered to Crowley” and was “active from 2010 to 2014.” The account “had the username @No_pork_plz and operated under the pseudonym ‘Dirt McGirk.’ The vast majority of the posts are from 2010.”
3. The page is still live on X. You can read it here, according to NBC News. “Follow No_pork_plz for those who don’t know it’s DC aka David bka Dirty or black ass dude hahaha… just STFU and follow #reweet,” says one 2010 post.
4. “At the time, Crowley was in his mid-20s and working for Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold’s campaign.” According to NBC News, “Crowley’s campaign confirmed he registered the account using his personal email address and wrote some of its posts. But it denied that he authored any of the controversial posts, saying he operated ‘Dirt McGirk’ with ’10-12 others’ in order to promote a bar and social club.” That was a Milwaukee club known as Onyx. But NBC says only 1 percent of the posts mentioned Onyx.
5. NBC News quoted Crowley’s campaign as saying: “David was one of many people who had access to this Twitter account more than a decade and a half ago. He did not write or post the problematic content in question,” the campaign said. “However, David did post on the page about his paternity history, which he has publicly spoken about in the past.” That’s a reference to Crowley learning a baby he thought he fathered in college wasn’t his, NBC reported. “The people who know me will be the first to tell you that I would never say these things,” Crowley said to NBC. “I strongly condemn the language used in these posts from a decade and a half ago.”
6. According to NBC, “the campaign attributed most of the controversial messages to a friend who is now deceased.” According to NBC, one of the living people involved was radio personality Rayhainio Boynes, who claimed Crowley didn’t write the offensive posts.
7. NBC noted that the page contains a selfie of Crowley and shared his personal social media content in his name, including content that now indicates he’s county executive.
8. Tony Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback responded to NBC that Evers endorsed Crowley because he’s the “best candidate” in the Democrat primary.
Here are the Dirt McGirk page posts. Please be forewarned that they are offensive.
